Future City Zines with OOMK

A zine drop-in workshop with OOMK at Grow Heathrow. Participants will be invited to use various templates and collage materials to create their own future city zines to take away. Participants will be able to explore the Grow Heathrow site to draw inspiration from it as well as sifting through a collection of zines and emphera brought along by OOMK.

Suggested donation – £2

OOMK is a highly visual, handcrafted small-press publication. Printed biannually its content pivots upon the imaginations, creativity and spirituality of women. Each issue centres around different creative theme, with more general content exploring topics of faith, activism and identity. Studio OOMK is a design studio that specialises in bespoke booklet design, project documentation, exhibition design and live illustration. The studio is run by Sofia Niazi (illustrator and educator), Heiba Lamara (researcher) and Rose Nordin (graphic designer). Previous clients include the Museum of London, Southbank Centre, 3FF and the Migration Museum.

Directions

By public transport from Central London: Travel to West Drayton in TfL zone 6 in 20 minutes by train from Paddington. From West Drayton station take the 222 bus towards Hounslow and get off at the Harmondsworth Lane stop, next to the King William pub. The stop before is The Plough and the stops afterwards are Sipson Close and Sipson Way. Grow Heathrow is 50 metres from the bus stop: continue in the same direction, take the next left into Sipson Lane, and left again passing the Church. You will see the banners on the gates to our site on Vineries Close, next to the Cooperative nursery.

Alternatively, travel on the Piccadilly Line to Hounslow West and then take the 222 toward Uxbridge and get off at Sipson Close. Grow Heathrow is a minutes walk away from the bus stop, continuing in the same direction. The entrance to our site is on Vineries Close, next to the Cooperative nursery, and can be found after turning right onto Sipson Lane.

By bike from West Drayton: A well-marked cycle path runs south from West Drayton station: after turning left out of the station, continue straight ahead on Station Road, which becomes Sipson Road, all the way. You go through a motorway underpass and through Sipson village, where you’ll see the King William pub on your right that we’re near to. Bikes can be taken on all trains between Paddington and West Drayton and they tend to be fine about people taking bikes on during peak hours. It’s possible to cycle between Hayes/West Drayton and central London in under 2 hours following the route of the Grand Union Canal.

At 10:00 this morning the land owner plus 5/6 bailiffs arrived to evict the residents of Grow Heathrow, threatening to break entry. Residents locked themselves to structures and climbed to higher ground. The police arrived, explaining to the bailiffs they were woefully unequipped to enforce an eviction. Indeed they were. Moreover, Inspector David George from the Heathrow Villages Area Police confirmed to us that as no official documentation regarding a warrant for the eviction was presented to Grow Heathrow or the police, the attempt to evict the site was unlawful.

This success has proved to be useful practise for our call-out response, with many locals and individuals in the Grow Heathrow family arriving this morning.

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO CAME DOWN!

If you’d like to be added to the eviction call-out phone tree, email us at info@transitionheathrow.com with your phone number, or text us on 07706602284.

HAYES CARNIVAL HERE WE COME!

We are still, as always, trying to buy our community garden’s land instead of having bailiffs at our home.

Heathrow airport admits that at least 750 homes would need to be evicted and bulldozed under their plans for a third runway, and obviously more for a fourth runway. However, houses next to the runway would be unliveable due to noise and possibly air pollution. Final government blueprints for a runway would be different to the airport’s proposals, and may include more homes. Grow Heathrow has been teaching local residents how to peacefully resist eviction, as a third runway could emit 11.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – more than the whole of Kenya. It is no surprise that people are refusing to be evicted to make way for climate crimes, when scientists warn that such airport expansion is incompatible with the government’s legally binding obligations under the Climate Change Act 2008 to cut carbon by 80% by 2050.

Along with steamed hogweed buds (and blackberries), the other favourite foraged edible at Grow Heathrow is elderberry vinegar. Come on Sunday 6 September from 1 till 5 and join us.

As always, we’ll big you up and thank you loads for any/as many clean empty jars as you can bring :). So – elderberries. This widespread, delicious wild food has been one of Britain’s best loved hedgerow treasures for centuries, brewed into a unique smooth, rich and port-like wine with a flavour unmatched by anything on supermarket shelves (see recipe). The tree (sambucus nigra) is easy to identify if you’ve smelled the sweet elderflowers around May and June; they turn into drooping clusters of shiny purplish-black elderberries hanging down from purple stems from mid August till October.

Its best kept secret is definitely elderberry balsamic vinegar. This is fun, quick to make and leaves you with a result that transforms cheap vinegar into posh balsamic: a bit like Jesus turning water into wine, but more directly useful for climbing the greasy pole of Britain’s entrenched system of class hierarchy.

Strip the berries from the stems using your hands or a fork; compost the stems. Take a litre of British cider vinegar (ie, the perfect amount for a small portion of chips) and add a kilo of elderberries. Chuck them together in a covered stainless steel, glass or enamelled container for a week. Then strain, put the liquid on the hob, let it simmer for ten minutes and bottle. Now order a small portion of chips to go with your litre of vinegar and enjoy. Congratulations: the balsamic vinegar in front of you means you’re going up in the world!

Living in broken rotting greenhouses has its perks. What plant books flatteringly call ‘wasteland species’ may not have the looks but as we like to say here, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. And autumn is coming up, with our Garden of Eden maze of elderberries and blackberries.

Hayes Carnival – 11th July – Save the Date. Transition Heathrow will be taking part in Hayes Carnival for the 6th year running. The theme this year is ‘Ringing in the changes – Hayes through the decades’.

Just like last years carnival, to start the day off there will be a procession with music, fun costumes and crazy bikes, leading us from Hayes Town to the free festival in Barra Hall Park.

In the Transition Heathrow ‘eco-zone’ at the park we’ll be putting on our usual range of activities promoting sustainable living and community resilience, including:

a solar powered sound stage with live music and performances.

a comfy well-being tent with space for guided yoga and massage.

crafts activities, making puppets, seed bombs and more.

pedal powered fruit smoothies and phone charging.

the Rocket Stove Cafe – serving hot drinks and home baked cakes.

an info stand and growing area with information about us and other local campaigns, and seeds to swap and share.

As in previous years, we’ll be joined by Friends of the Earth Hillingdon, and also for the first time Stop Heathrow Expansion will be bringing a stall to share news of the campaign against the third runway.

If you’re interested in getting involved with the Transition Heathrow space at Hayes Carnival, whether it’s providing music, baking or costume making, please get in touch asap at info@transitionheathrow.com.

Summer fair season has reached the Heathrow Villages, starting this saturday 27th June in the shady, historic grounds of St Marys Church in Harmondsworth.

There will be live jazz, home made cakes and cream teas, sumo wresting, crafts, bric-a-brac, games, competitions, coconut shy and much more on offer.

We are hoping to see lots of people, visitors to the villages and local residents alike – out to enjoy the day and support the event. It’s a perfect opportunity to experience the best that the villages can offer, and see what is likely to be lost should a third runway at Heathrow go ahead.

Harmondsworth primary school have their summer event the same day – why not visit both – close by and very different but complimentary events!

HARTS (Heathrow arts project) is launching a series of community murals on Friday 29th May as the last stop on the ‘Flag it Up’ parade’. The parade will begin at 11am in Harmondsworth; the village which faces almost complete demolition should a 3rd runway at Heathrow Airport be granted by the Government.

Hundreds of children living in the Heathrow villages have made flags based around the theme of ‘home’, that will be displayed on the lamp-posts, to combat the physical and social blight from the airport and the threat of its expansions and demonstrate the future that is strived for by the people of Heathrow.

The flag parade will start by St Mary’s church in Harmondsworth with activities 11am-12pm, walking to Sipson between 12-1pm, lunch at Grow Heathrow 1-2pm, (UB7 0JH), walking to Harlington between 2-3pm and finishing under the mural at Saint Peter and Saint Paul’s Church Hall with tea, music and activities, 3-4pm.

The date coincides with the final day of consultation of Airports Commissions air quality assessment and the mass action camp ‘Reclaim the Power’, where people are highlighting the need, from many different angles, for the UK to cut emissions, reduce reliance on dirty energy and create a more just society.

The ‘Flag it Up!’ parade and the community murals are part of a series of community-led arts projects in the Heathrow villages. Other projects involve landscape art, film and social sculpture. Harts is looking for artists to come to the Heathrow villages to develop projects with the community over 2015, so if you can help get in touch at: